Antibiotics In Our Food: Should We Be Concerned?

They may be prescribed too easily, but you’ll need antibiotics to fight serious bacterial infections when your immune system just isn’t enough.

We count on antibiotics to be able to beat bacteria. However, what happens when these bacteria become resistant to antibodies?

If you only had to worry about how often you take prescribed antibiotics, you probably wouldn’t have to worry about bacteria building up a tolerance. Unfortunately, you are not the only variable in this equation. Are you eating food that was previously exposed to antibiotics, and are you eating bacteria that are already resistant?

Antibiotics are approved for use in farming cattle, poultry, pigs, fish, and is even sprayed on fruit crops. The levels of antibiotics are regulated, and guidelines are set in place to ensure humans aren’t ingesting too high of levels, but some experts believe this is still the highest risk for creating resistant bacteria.

According to the WHO, the scientific evidence is clear that overuse of antibiotics in livestock production is the most important source of resistant strains of salmonella and campylobacter bacteria, and to a lesser extent E.coli and MRSA. These resistant bugs can pass from animals to humans in a number of ways, mainly through food. For example, people who eat contaminated chicken can risk catching a salmonella bug that may be resistant to antibiotics.

So what can you do? How do you deal with external circumstances?

Choosing organic food is a good start. It’s no guarantee because bacteria are easily transferable from one animal to another.

So should we be concerned about antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or is this a hypothetical scare tactic?

Hey Tom & Nick,
Thanks for starting this discussion. I am a veterinarian and I work exclusively with farmers who raise livestock that are a part of the food supply, mostly dairy farmers. This is a huge issue right now in my world, it seems that pretty much any cow vet meeting that I attend these days has a significant portion devoted to the topic of antibiotic resistance. From my understanding, from where the science is now, we can make 2 assumptions right now, fairly confidently.

1) The use of antibiotics in food-producing animals does contribute to antibiotic resistance in bacteria that affect humans
2) The amount of total antibiotic resistance present right now in bacteria that cause disease in humans that can be attributed to the use of antibiotics in food producing animals is less than 10%. Said another way, if we never use antibiotics in food producing animals again (or, perhaps, never used them to start with) then the worldwide problem of antibiotic resistance would be reduced to 90% of what it is today.

So is the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals an issue? Yes. Is it the MAJOR cause of antibiotic resistance in bacteria that cause disease in humans? Definitely not.